Reykjavik

By Laura Dixon

The northernmost capital city in the world, Reykjavík is also one of the friendliest. From deliciously warm springs and lagoons to its background of snow-topped mountains, Reykjavík is creative and unique. This Footprint Handbook provides invaluable information on transport, accommodation, eating and entertainment to ensure that your trip includes the best of this welcoming city and the surrounding countryside.

• Essentials section with useful advice on getting to and around Reykjavík.

• Comprehensive, up-to-date listings of where to eat, sleep and play.

• Includes information on tour operators and activities, from puffin-spotting to quirky coffee shops.

• Detailed maps for Reykjavík & other destinations in Iceland

• Slim enough to fit in your pocket.

With detailed information on all the main sights, plus many lesser-known attractions, Footprint's Reykjavík Handbook provides concise and comprehensive coverage of one of the most interesting capitals in Europe, and also covers other key destinations in Iceland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides Ltd
• Release date: Jun 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781910120804

Laura Dixon

Laura Dixon is a freelance writer and editor with the land of fire and ice in her veins. Since authoring the first guide to Reykjavik at the tender age of 23 in 2003, Footprint Reykjavik, she has made regular pilgrimages to her favourite city to write about it for magazines and newspapers around the world, and find any excuse to go swimming in the city's natural thermal waters. She has written and reviewed for The Guardian, The Independent, The National and I-escape.com. She lives with her husband and daughter in Bristol. View her website at www.laurajaynedixon.co.uk.

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When to go

… and when not to

Being so far north, travel in Iceland is highly seasonal due to the extremes of temperatures and daylight hours. Visit November to February to see the Northern Lights or late June to August to experience the midnight sun. Hours of daylight shape how you can see the country: in mid-December there are around four hours of daylight, while in mid-July there is approximately one hour of darkness and 23 hours of daylight.

The shoulder seasons of spring and autumn are good for walking and activities, and are cheaper than the peak summer season; winter is the low season for accommodation and flights, excluding the Christmas/New Year period.

Whenever you visit you need to pack warm clothes because conditions can change quickly. The changing weather is one of the few hazards in the country and to help you plan activities such as glacier climbing, hiking and cycling, it’s a good idea to visit the website www.safetravel.is, which has kit lists, driving information and everything outdoorsy people need to know about visiting the country.

Note that in the winter months many routes to the centre of Iceland and its Highlands are closed and don’t reopen until the late spring. This might affect you if you plan to visit Landmannalaugar or do the Laugavegurinn hike, for example (see here).

What to do

activities from glacier hiking to soaking in the Blue Lagoon

Caving

Þingvellir National Park has numerous lava caves beneath it. Trips can be arranged from Reykjavik to visit the lava caves and tubes from eruptions that took place 9000 years ago.

Diving

The Silfra Rift in Þingvellir Lake is a unique place for diving. The clear water means excellent visibility and you can dive right down to where bubbles of water show that the tectonic plates are moving away.

Dog sledding

Dog sledding can take place all year round depending on the snow; trips are conducted on glaciers in the summer, meaning a longer ride from Reykjavík, and closer to the city at other times.

Iceland’s best hot springs

Laugardalslaug Thermal Pool and Spa, see here

Blue Lagoon, see here

Geysir, see here

Landmannalaugar, see here

Mount Hengill Geothermal Springs, see here

Lake Mývatn Nature Baths, see here

Fishing

Iceland’s lakes and rivers are populated with trout and salmon. The season runs Apr-Sep. Salmon fishing needs to be booked long in advance but trout-fishing permits are available at short notice. The most popular areas are Reykjavík, Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Landmannalaugar and Akureyri.

Glacier tours

Snowmobile and snow cat tours of Snæfellsjökull glacier run from the town of Arnastapi on the south coast of Snæfellsnes, plus guided drives on to the snow. See here.

Hiking

There are a number of hiking routes in Þingvellir around the ancient assembly site and nearby abandoned farms. The visitor centre has a park ranger who can offer information in the summer, otherwise many of the hikes can be tackled independently.

Iceland’s most famous hike is the 4-day (55-km) Laugavegurinn, between the volcanic landscape of Landmannalaugar and the forest of Þorsmörk. Passing glaciers, mountains, gorges and geothermal springs, there are also a number of rivers to cross en route. See here for further details.

ON THE ROAD

In search of the Northern Lights

Iceland has plenty of extraordinary natural wonders and one of the very best is the Northern Lights or aurora borealis. Because the city of Reykjavík is so small and offers very little in the way of light pollution, it is possible to see them on a clear night just half an hour from the city. The season for Northern Light watching is late October to March, and evenings are given a grading according to how likely it is to see them, with a cold clear night in spring or autumn given the highest rating. Cloudy nights offer very little chance of seeing this natural phenomenon.

These greenish, yellowish, pinkish stripes in the sky are caused by electrically charged particles emitted by the sun that interact with the earth’s magnetic field. It makes no difference if you’re viewing them from a mountain or a valley because they are so high up in the earth’s atmosphere. They also don’t make a sound. As the particles collide with the upper atmosphere at great speeds, they cause the air to glow in the beautiful auroral colours.

Intensity is extremely variable, and is affected by solar activity. This peaks in 11-year cycles. The last peak, or solar maximum, was in 2013, when large sunspots appeared on the sun and its irradiant output was increased. The Northern Lights were particularly intense around this time and will be brighter than normal for the following few years.

In Iceland, the brightest aurora are in the spring and autumn rather than midwinter, although then can be seen at any time between October and March, and the best time to look is between 2100 and 2400. What you need to look for is a shadowy grey bow shape in the sky, rather like the shape of a rainbow but in a cloudy grey colour. It splits gradually into lines and soon green and pink lights which dance across the sky. This display can last for a few hours or disappear within 10 minutes. If you plan to photograph them, be sure to use a slow shutter speed and no flash. Colours are far more intense seen through a lens than in the sky with the naked eye.

The best places to see the Northern Lights are a little out of the city, although they can still be seen in a brightly lit street. About 10 km from Reykjavík, Heiðmörk is a good place that is far away from artificial light pollution, as is Nesjavallavegur, 20 km away. If you have the chance to stay outside the city, Hotel Ranga in South Iceland has well positioned hot tubs for Northern Light viewing, and Hotel Buðir on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula is a wonderful wilderness location with a great record of offering views of them. Many Reykjavík-based tour companies offering trips to see the Northern Lights by bus and even on horseback (see here).

There are plenty of strange traditions about the Northern Lights. The Japanese believe that conceiving a baby under them will produce a child of extreme intelligence, while Icelanders believe that watching the Northern Lights while pregnant will make your baby cross-eyed.

ON THE ROAD

Wildlife watching in Iceland

Depending on the time of year, you can see puffins and whales on boat trips from Reykjavík harbour, and also from various places around Iceland. Bird watchers might like to make a special trip to Þingvellir to watch birds from North America and Europe.

Puffin watching

The best time to watch puffins is between June and early August each year. Puffins migrate at the end of August each year, along with their pufflings, or chicks. They are a common bird in Iceland and are the size of small penguins with brightly coloured parrot beaks. They are as eccentric as the country, live in burrow like rabbits and can dive up to 18 m under water to catch their food, the sand eel. They are nicknamed the profastur – meaning professors – for their dinner-jacketed appearance.

Summer whale-watching trips from Reykjavík often include a chance to see these sea birds, which congregate around Lundey island in the harbour, which takes its name from the Icelandic name for puffin.

Puffins are hunted in the Westman Islands and other coastal spots around the country by men wielding butterfly nets. Most of the cliffs have an immense number of seabirds and the most tricky to access are hunted by men on ropes, rappelling around the cliffs. Seabirds eggs are also collected and you’ll find puffin and guillemot among the native dishes on traditional restaurants’ menus everywhere in the country. Because puffins are only really in season during the summer, the freshest tasting and best are on menus then, not in the winter. See below for puffin watching tours from Reykjavík, and see here for information on the Westman Islands’ annual Puffin Festival.

Whale watching

Reykjavík’s harbour has plenty of opportunities for whale watching. The best time to watch migratory whales in Iceland is May to September, but there are whales in the water around the country all year round. There are 23 types of whale that you could see, including minke, humpback, blue and orca, with minke the most common species sighted. There’s also a high chance of spotting harbour porpoise and white beaked dolphin on a whale-watching tour. Be sure to wrap up warm as the Arctic wind is very cold; if you think you might be seasick, the whale-watching company can supply seasickness remedies.

The best place in the country to see whales is Húsavík, a town in northern Iceland. There is a good whale-watching centre in the town (see here). Iceland no longer whales commercially, but does hunt a small quota of whales for scientific purposes every year. To find out more about the Icelandic whaling industry and about whales in Iceland in general, visit www.icewhale.is. See here for tour companies offering whale watching from Reykjavík.

Horse riding

Icelandic ponies are not only loveable shaggy beast but have a special talent: they can run in 5 gears, rather than the standard 4. Most horses can walk, trot, canter and run, but Icelandic ponies can also tölt – they run with both legs from the same side of the body at the same time. It’s a curious trick. The ponies themselves are pure bred and hardy and were brought over at the time of the Vikings. Local riding stables near the city offer day and half-day tours, but there are also opportunities on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, Landmmanalaugar and Akureyri.

Northern Lights

Many hotels and hostels can arrange Northern Lights tours. The best time to see them is Nov-Feb. Most companies offer a free trip if you fail to see them on your first outing – sightings are not guaranteed as they are heavily weather dependent.

Skiing

Iceland isn’t a place you’d visit just for the skiing, but it does have some decent slopes with ski areas just 25 mins from Reykjavík. Húsavík offers cross-country skiing, while Akureyri is a popular base for both downhill and heli-sking.

Swimming

The country’s most famous natural swimming pool is the iconic Blue Lagoon; what most people don’t know is that within the city there are a number of great geothermal swimming pools for a fraction of the price. Also, in Reykjavík is the quirky Nauthólsvík Beach where the sea is pumped with geothermal water.

The Lake Mývatn Nature Baths near Húsavík are known as the ‘blue lagoon of the north’.

Whitewater rafting and kayaking

Rivers accessible from Reykjavík for whitewater rafting are mainly a drive away in the south of Iceland where there are a number of different levels at which to raft. Most of the activity-based tour operators can organize rafting and kayking.

Where to stay

from city chic to hikers’ huts

www.airbnb.co.uk, can help find good-value accommodation and connect with hosts directly.

Reykjavík’s architecture isn’t as fairytale twee as Copenhagen, nor as stylish and classical as Stockholm; instead it’s a little bit more Soviet bloc. Stylish boutique hotels are clad in grey concrete slabs, mainly because the weather can be brutal, but also because, until fairly recently, Reykjavík was little more than a village and the city as it is today has grown up fairly quickly, so there is little sense of historical architecture. When you choose your hotel, don’t judge the book by its cover.

The best place to stay is in the 101 district, or Old Town; the Laugardalur Valley, 3 km away, is also a good option. Any further out and you’ll need a car or public transport to experience the city and its attractions. There are also some notable hotels beyond the city in Mosfellsbaer and Snæfellsnes that are worth booking for a night or so for a true Icelandic wilderness experience.

The city’s youth hostels are a really good bet – you